Bill Pascrell: “I must say, Chairman Wolf, you've always been a sensitive person--I don't say this to blow smoke; I really mean this…”

“I must say, Chairman Wolf, you've always been a sensitive person--I don't say this to blow smoke; I really mean this-- and it's a tough decision when you have to make priorities. We come to the floor to fight for what we believe in, and I think you respect that, and I'm sure the gentleman from Staten Island respects that as well, and we all do here, my good friend from Philadelphia, Congressman Fattah. We'd like to do all of these things and more. But not only did we run out of applications--think about that. People, we said, stop, don't apply any longer. You've got 11,000, 12,000 cops laid off, police officers in this country. Tell me that doesn't have consequences. Tell me, what are those consequences? Smaller warrant squads. The last two police officers killed in North Jersey, killed by two guys on the lam. We didn't have enough people to go look for them. That's not acceptable in a society which depends upon law and order. So you can't talk out of both sides of your mouth about law and order. We need police on the streets. This is about community policing. And I would say to my good friend from Virginia, these are two programs that, tonight, we're speaking about one of the police, the COPS Program, and the Fire Act. Leader Hoyer could tell us about that. But they're two bills that are run--no other bills are run better in the Federal Government. I think we would want to duplicate that.…”